Chapter 43

 

 

DAY 1

 

 

ROCKY MOUNTAINS

ALMONT, COLORADO,

0625 hrs.

 

Calla wrung her fingers and placed them over the keyboard. She couldn’t sleep and rubbed her eyes scrutinizing the email she’d composed hours ago. She’d send it through the little black box sitting in the corner of the room, a secure network, courtesy of the National Security Agency, or better known as the NSA. As a senior intelligence analyst at the agency, Nash had wired his Colorado home with every type of home and office security gadgetry in existence.

No one knew she was here with him.

No one should.

She reread the draft to her superior, Veda Westall, Head of the British Museum in London.

 

 

To: Veda Westall

Subject: Distorted!

 

I’m sorry, but I couldn’t tell you the truth. I didn’t go on an archeological trip to Egypt. I didn’t know I would be involved in clandestine, government procedures, too disturbing to retell. I have a secret.

A secret, my best-friend calls a gift, the doctors call rare, the government would call a weapon and the one who wants me dead calls trouble!

Six months ago, I would have believed them all, but now I’m not sure.

Three years ago, the government asked me to take on an covert role as a cultural agent for one of their undercover agencies, the ISTF (International Security Taskforce). I was assigned the task of authenticating what we know as The Deveron Manuscript, an artifact whose script didn’t exist in any known human language. When I deciphered the manuscript, little did I know it would be a journey of discovery. That’s why I had to leave the museum so suddenly six months ago.

I don’t trust anything the government has to say to me any longer. The search for my parents and the deciphering of the manuscript revealed a few things to me. I have a multimillion pound trust fund with my name on it. I’ve no idea where it came from.

I discovered some disturbing things about me. I accomplish physical feats most soldiers would kill for. My instincts and sudden awareness of danger are heightened above those of a dolphin. I was born with penetrating eyesight, scientists would call nature’s only example of super vision.

Am I distorted? An outsider. You decide. My unclear past is the least of my worries, though. What I can’t yet understand are these people who call themselves ‘operatives’. I’m presumably one of them.

Operatives live above the state of nature and aren’t subjected to everyday, natural laws. Their technologies and science defy anything you can imagine. They are people with the secrets of the heavens, the knowledge and science, years ahead of anything humanity knows. I don’t know who they answer to and why. They’re trapped in our cities, our towns, offices, and in our ways. Their origin is as debatable as evolution theories and their legitimacy as that of the Shroud of Turin. Their secrets are known only to a few, perhaps the government. Though the secret intelligence services don’t understand them, they need them.

They’ve visited you many times. You may have not been aware. You’d know. Because, they leave their mark. Perhaps a stranger walked into a café. The girl who regularly checks her e-mails there. The politician for whom you voted. Your mother?

Mine was. And I am too . . .only, I wish I wasn’t.

Veda, I don’t know what I’d do if you don’t believe me.

 

Calla glared out the window for a moment at the snow-caped Rockies. She could not send this nonsense to the head of the British Museum in London. Even though she trusted her with every instinct she had, Veda would not believe her.

Then again, who would?